, 1887-05-05
STREET TYPES IN Q N
A Barsheaded B~eauty-Two ContadIna
women-A Roman Cowboy.

A Barsheaded BeRuty-Two ContRdInA
women-A Roman Cowboy.
Let us take a stroll through the streets,
selecting not the Corso or the spick and
epan thoroughfares of the foreign quarter,
but let us turn into a side street and then
walk o. into the heart of Rome. The
first person to attract our attention is n
young women, neatly and decently
dressed, but with this popularity, that
she wears neither bonnet nor hat. Her
only headdreSs is her own beautiful hair,
which is neatly brushed and as often as
not done up in the latest fashion. This
young woman belongs to the minenti
class, a name given to the girls and women
who never wear head covering. These
women are for the most part the wives
or daughters of well to do tradesmen.
As a class they are most respectable, and
q certain proportion represent in their
dress and the valuable jewelry which they
wear IN festive occasions the prosperity
OF the family income, which is often much
larger h that of the class above them,
who do wear bonnets.
But no matter what the weather, how
ever glaring the sun or intense the cold
or pitlless the rain, the minenti never put
ON hat or bonnet. Many Of these women
have fair hair and skin and blue eyes,
thus doing away with the universal i'm
preston that Italian women all have
black hair and dark compilations.
Strolllng on, we hear a kind of muffled
cry. something between a chant and a
wall, and while we are wondering whence
it comes, an old man, bent and d%ecrepit,
with his clothes a series Of darns and
patches, comes trotting round the corner.
He it is droning out the chant which has
caught our attention, and. as he sings, he
holds aloft n tray of sweetmeats with
dried and glace fruits. As he moves rap
idly along he glance5 up at all the win
dowS, and although his face Is old and
wrinkled, it is clean, and there is a merry
twinkle III his eye when the children call
TO him and he stops before a doorway.
Coming out into a square, we find our
selves before one of the 365 churches with
which Rome is blessed, and resting on
the steps where they have laid their bur
lens are two genuine contadina women
u type becoming every year rarer, for the
Roman peasant woman, like many of her
sisters in other parts of Italy, is getting
tired Of her beautiful and picturesque cos
tune, and now, especially on SUNDAYS
and feto days, often arrays herself in taw-
dry hnery and tortures herself in a town
dress. But here are two il their own
costume, and whiio the old mother is re-
arranging the heavy bundles which they
poise 80 gracefully On their heads, let us
u Il look at the daughter, "A splendid
specimen of her kind.
Dark, liquid eyes, straight, delicately
formed nose and well cut mouth, the
parted lips showing the white and even
teeth, are framed in the traditional head
dress of white linen. the zuccatoro, be-
meath which is seen the glossy black hair,
IN striking contrast TO the olive complex
ion with its rudy unGerflush, a tint made
only by mother nature with the Campagna
brcezes for her brush and the sun for q
color box. AS the girl rises from the
steps and stands erect to receive her bun
iii, her fine figure is displayed to good
8cSantage. A omen later she and her
mother have started at u good, swinging
pace, to their home on the Campagna or
up among the mountains, a distance per
haps of twenty or thirty miles.
We now turn into a very narrow
street and suddenly move out OF the
way to avoid being RIM down by n peas
ant mounted on n scraggy, understood
horse, who goes trotting swiftly by. The
horses name and tail are unEempt, his
coat rough, and he has never been
groomed in his life, but he has u bright
eye and u game look, as if he could trot
or gallop for many Il mile without falter-
ing. The peasant Oh his back is rougb,
like the horse. On his head is a conical
shaped hat, rather the worse for wear;
but the cloak around his shoulders is O
good and serviceable one, and he wears
stout leather ~leggings. In his right hand
our peasant poises a long pole tipped W it'll
iron, while with the other he manages
the horse, always obedient TO the slightest
movement of his wrist. The horseman
Is q Roman cowboy from the Campagna.
and here called a buttero. He had large
droves OF the wild Campagna horses
under his care, but his duties engage him
principally in the morning and evening,
70 meantime he has trotted into Rome
for a leisurely chat with some friends and
a glass of good wine at an o~steria, Rome's
nearest equivalent to a public bar. If
not as picturesque looking as the Amer
a cowboy, the Roman buttero is much
less dangerous. He is only a good ma
tured peasant, but with a quick eve, q
ready hand with the lasso and u frame
Injured TO every kind of weather and pri-
walton. 1t may be that somewhere in
the folds of his garments is hidden o
knife, but in this he is only like all other
Romans, to whom u knife seems as neces-
eSSary as food and drink-Cor RnatOn